Anti-abortion group will meet pope in Washington

Coalition for Life leader to meet with Pope

from the eagle here in Bryan/College Station:

By JANET PHELPS
Eagle Staff Writer

“I think this is the beginning of something huge,” he said. “It just shows that if abortion is to end, it’s going to be from the grassroots level.”

Being invited to such a prestigious event, Carney said, shows the campaign is receiving national attention.

“[Bereit] is representing all the people in this community who have put in so many hours and so much work on this,” he said.

Carney, who now serves on the board of directors of the local 40 Days for Life organization, said the White House invitation is a tribute to local activists who have worked hard to get the movement off the ground.

Bereit opened the Washington, D.C., office last summer.

144 cities in 44 states and five countries outside the U.S.

Since then, the movement — which advocates a peaceful, prayerful approach to ending abortion — has spread to

 

A locally-founded anti-abortion organization will be represented Wednesday at a White House ceremony to welcome Pope Benedict XVI as he arrives for a private meeting with President George Bush.

Officials from 40 Days for Life, a campaign that began in College Station in 2004, were invited last week to attend the private ceremony.

David Bereit, a former College Station resident who now heads up 40 Days for Life’s national office in Washington, D.C., said he was stunned when he got the e-mail from the White House.

At first, Bereit said, he thought it was a hoax.

“This is an incredible honor,” Bereit said. “I am humbled and excited to be part of this.”

Benedict will spend the next six days in Washington, D.C., and New York City as part of his first visit to the U.S.

That 40 Days for Life officials were invited to Wednesday’s ceremony is a sign that the group is a leader in the anti-abortion movement, organization officials said Tuesday.

The group created a Web site and a franchise-like approach to marketing the program last summer, Carney said, when anti-abortion groups across the country started showing interest.

 

God’s Silence

Mother Teresa Endured God’s Silence, Says Pope
Comments on Nun’s “Dark Night” to Youth

VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 4, 2007 (Zenit.org).- God speaks even when he doesn’t say anything, Benedict XVI told 500,000 young people in reference to the “dark night” of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

Mother Teresa’s spiritual suffering was one of the topics covered by the Pope on Saturday night, during his question-and-answer session with 500,000 youth in Loreto, Italy.

The Vatican released the transcript of the questions and answers today.

The session, held in the esplanade of Montorso, was part of a two-day encounter of Italian youth with the Holy Father.

A young Italian woman, Sara Simonetta, explained to the Pontiff that she believed “in the God that had touched my heart, but I feel a lot of insecurity, questions, fear.”

“I feel human solitude, and I would like to feel God close. Holiness, in this silence, ‘Where is God?’” she asked.

Benedict XVI responded that “we all, even though we believe, experience this silence of God.”

“A book was just published on the spiritual experiences of Mother Teresa, and what we have known is now more openly presented: With all her charity, her strength of faith, Mother Teresa suffered the silence of God,” he said.

The Pope was referring to the book “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light,” written by Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, postulator for the cause of canonization of the founder of the Missionaries of Charity. The book, published 10 years after the nun’s death, is a compilation of her letters and writings.

Benedict XVI continued: “On one hand, we have to endure this silence of God, partly in order to understand our brethren who don’t know God.”

On the other, he said, “we can always yell out again to God: ‘Talk, show yourself!’ And without a doubt, if the heart is open, we can discover the great moments of our life in which the presence of God is truly perceptible, even to us.”

Seeing God

The Pope explained how it is possible to see God.

Before all, the Pontiff said, “the beauty of creation is one of the sources in which we can touch the beauty of God, we can see that the Creator exists and is good, that it is true what sacred Scripture says in the creation account.”

Second, he explained, it is possible to perceive the divine presence “listening to the word of God in the great liturgical celebrations, in the great music of faith.”

Benedict XVI then told the story of a woman who converted to Christianity after having listened to the music of Bach, Handel and Mozart.

Third, the Pope told the assembly of youth, one can discover God through “personal dialogue with Christ.”

“He doesn’t always respond, but there are moments in which he really responds,” the Pontiff said.

A last way of discovering God, according to the Holy Father, is “friendship, companionship in the faith.”

Benedict XVI continued: “Now, here, gathered in Loreto, we see how faith unites, how friendship creates a companionship of journeying persons.

“And we experience that all of this does not come from nothing, but has a source, that the silent God is also a God who speaks, who reveals himself, and above all, that we can be witnesses of his presence, that our faith truly brings about light, even for others.”

The Pope added: “On one hand, we have to accept that in this world, God is silent, but we shouldn’t make ourselves deaf when he speaks, when he manifests his presence on so many occasions, above all in Creation, in the liturgy, in friendship within the Church. And, full of his presence, we can also give light to others.”

Don’t Be Seduced!

LORETO, Italy, SEPT. 2, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI invited half a million young people to go against the current in a world seduced by violence, despotism and “success at all costs.”The Pope’s appeal resounded at the closing Mass today in Loreto, where the Holy Father arrived Saturday for an encounter with youth from Italy and around the world.“There are so many messages, above all through the media, that are being directed toward you! Be vigilant! Be critical!” the Pontiff exclaimed.

Faith, Reason, and Love

Farouq said that he agrees with the Pontiff’s reflections on fundamentalist religion and violence: “Nihilism and fundamentalism agree in their scorn for God and man: the former because it denies the truth, the latter because it wants to impose the truth.”

“This is where violence is born,” Farouq explained. “Violence that can be overcome by the commandment to love.”

“Reason,” he claimed, “is a relation based on love: Without love, faith itself does not reach its goal.”

Farouq then pointed out that Mohammed wrote: “You will not be brothers until you love each other.”

-Clip from Wa’il Farouq, a professor of Islamic Sciences at the Coptic-Catholic Faculty of Sakini in Cairo

Get Your "Passport" Ready for Heaven, Says Pope

Stamp It With Works That Show Friendship With Christ - 

VATICAN CITY, AUG. 26, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Heaven is an equal-opportunity destination, but to gain entry one needs a “passport” stamped with virtues such as humility, mercy and truth, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope said this today in a reflection he gave on the “narrow gate,” before reciting the midday Angelus with several thousand people gathered in the courtyard of the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo.

The Pontiff asked: “What is meant by this ‘narrow gate’? Why is it that many people do not succeed in entering through it? Is it perhaps a passage that is reserved only for a few elect?”

The Holy Father said that the message of Christ is that everybody has an equal chance of entering through the narrow gate, “but it is ‘narrow’ because it is demanding, it requires commitment, self-denial and mortification of one’s own egoism.”

Christ invites all to heaven, he said, “but with one and the same condition: that of making the effort to follow him and imitate him, taking up one’s cross, as he did, and dedicating one’s life to the service of our brothers.”

Benedict XVI makes the point that “we will not be judged on the basis of presumed privileges, but by our works.”

“True friendship with Christ,” he added, “is expressed by one’s way of life: it is expressed by goodness of heart, with humility, meekness and mercy, love of justice and truth, sincere and honest commitment to peace and reconciliation.”

The Pope adds, “This, we might say, is the ‘I.D. card’ that qualifies us as authentic ‘friends’; this is the ‘passport’ that permits us to enter into eternal life.”

On Conscience

VATICAN CITY, AUG. 16, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is part of a Vatican translation of Benedict XVI’s July 24 question-and-answer session with priests from the dioceses of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso, Italy, during the Pope’s vacation.

Today, the idea prevails that only what is quantifiable can be rational, which stems from reason. Other things, such as the subjects of religion and morals, should not enter into common reason because they cannot be proven or, rather, put to the “acid test”, so to speak. In this situation, where morals and religion are as it were almost expelled from reason, the subject is the only ultimate criterion of morality and also of religion, the subjective conscience which knows no other authority. In the end, the subject alone decides, with his feelings and experience, on the possible criteria he has discovered. Yet, in this way the subject becomes an isolated reality and, as you said, the parameters change from one day to the next. In the Christian tradition, “conscience”, “con-scientia”, means “with knowledge”: that is, ourselves, our being is open and can listen to the voice of being itself, the voice of God. Thus, the voice of the great values is engraved in our being and the greatness of the human being is precisely that he is not closed in on himself, he is not reduced to the material, something quantifiable, but possesses an inner openness to the essentials and has the possibility of listening. In the depths of our being, not only can we listen to the needs of the moment, to material needs, but we can also hear the voice of the Creator himself and thus discern what is good and what is bad.